5 Great Trips for Travelers With Pain

What kinds of trips and vacations are the most compatible with chronic pain? The 10-day whitewater kayaking, ziplining, and bungee jumping adventure is right out. So are a number of other types of travel, but in this post I’m accentuating the positive–the kinds of trips that travelers with pain can take and not just enjoy, but adore.

Cruises

Geared for older crowds and catering to the visibly disabled wheelchair-using crowd, cruise ships come equipped with a wide variety of amenities that make it much easier for travelers with pain to enjoy a scenic vacation. I’ve already done a long post on cruising with pain. And I’ll get more cruising experience when I speak at the floating SATH congress in January, so check back in February for more info and opinions on cruising with pain.

Spa Experiences

Spa resorts tend to come in two flavors–luxury spas and health spas. Both work well for travelers with pain, because of the emphasis on relaxation and wellness. I’ve got a lot of experience with luxury spa resorts, and I love them dearly. Sitting for an hour or three in a deep soaking hot tub, then indulging in a massage, a facial, a detoxifying body wrap makes me feel fabulous. I’m trying my very first hardcore retreat “spa” next month–the Fresh Start Retreat on Vancouver Island in Canada. I’ll be blogging and tweeting live from Fresh Start while I’m there, so you all will get the real scoop as I’m choking down the wheat grass juice and cleansing drinks.

National Park Gentle Adventures

For my United States audience–we’ve got a fabulous system of national parks in this country that just beg to be visited by travelers with pain. Most national parks have on-site or near-site indoor lodgings, restaurants and food shops, and visitors centers that double as museums. National parks all follow US ADA guidelines, which means that visitors centers, restrooms, and a certain number of trails are wheelchair accessible. Wheelchair accessible trails tend to be shorter, flatter, and easy enough for travelers with pain to enjoy. Most national parks have a network of roads that allow for scenic tours without the need to hike–some also offer ecologically friendly and comfortable bus tours of park highlights.

Classic Weekend Getaways

You know the trip I mean because it’s one that healthy people take all the time. Get a room at a charming inn for Friday and Saturday night someplace that’s close enough to home to be an easy drive, but far enough away to feel “away.” Both small towns and big cities work equally well as weekend getaway destinations–I like both, it just depends on my mood. Arrange for an in-room couples massage and make reservations for dinner nearby. Spend the rest of the weekend snuggling in bed with a book, taking long hot baths and short easy walks, and recuperating from the week (the month, the year)…

Going to Disneyland

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again–nobody does it like Disney. Whether you pick Disneyland, Disneyworld, or even the much-mocked EuroDisney, the Mouse can provide accommodations that simply don’t exist at any other theme or amusement park on earth. From rentable wheelchairs and scooters to Guest Access Cards to cast members (employees) who actually pay attention and know how to help guests who are obviously in medical trouble, it’s possible get the help you need to have tons of fun with your family at Disney. Be sure to get informed before you go–this website not only has great info, it links to most of the rest of the stuff you’ll need to know to get everything you need in the DisneyVerse.

What other types of trips work best for you? What kind of destinations are friendliest for travelers with pain, or with your specific condition? Let’s build on this list!

2 Responses

what we’ve found that works for our family – my disabilities and our 8yo daughter – is slow travel. if we spend a few weeks to a month or more, in ONE place, we don’t have to hurry, we have lots of rest time. we rent a home so we have a yard for our daughter to play. we rent a car so that we can get to places easily. it opens the world up to us!

For 26 years my biz for travelers with wheels has offered accessible vacations to destinations outside the USA. Our travelers with pain fall into two camps; those experiencing it constantly and those who can avoid activities, for the most part, that bring it on.
When I speaking with a traveler who mentions pain in an initial contact, I’m eager to listen to what they have in mind to do. If they don’t know where they want to go, I ask about their top destinations (the Bucket List). During my conversations I need more descriptions of their budgets of time & money. With these facts it’s easy to begin a creative conversation about what could be done for their money, their time away from home, and their abilities to stay pain-free through-out it all.
A point to remember is a close to home vacation for a Californian could be too far away to travel for a Pennsylvanian. At the same time, offering a two-three day refreshing rest-stop in London on a long ride to India might not be in the cards if the client has only two weeks of vacation.
When I’m travel counseling a client who doesn’t know where they want to go, I know from experience they always know how far they don’t want to go. I ask these clients to make a series of circles around their home town like a bulls-eye on a dart board and each circle is one additional hour of flying time away from their home. In Philadelphia for instance, three hours flying time takes me to Denver, Miami, or Canada and six hours flying time delivers me to Los Angeles, London, and Cancun. If for one reason or another (money or pain) I can’t afford to fly more than six hours, then Alaska, Hawaii, Buenos Aires, Madrid, Paris and Rome are all out of bounds. On the other hand, or should I say on the other coast, for folks in Los Angeles, it’s 5 hours to Hawaii, 3 hours to Alaska and 3 hours to Mexico.
Once we have a destination in mind it’s the time to develop and implement several working pain-avoidance strategies into the travel itinerary. These are usually best know by the traveler and often include: no stair climbing, not walking to far, and activity moderation. I also need to know lots of specific details about the two sides to pain from each clients: what brings it on when someone’s pain free and what’s done to relieve it when someone’s in a lot of pain. These pain avoidance and pain relieving strategies personally impact every individual’s itinerary in individually specific ways. For some, that may mean scheduling two half-day visits to the Louvre Museum instead of one, taking an extra night or two in Jerusalem in preparation for a group tour, or extending a precruise overnight in advance of a sea voyage for no reason other than thinking about the bumps from bangs you can get from flying.
Since destinations and landmarks traditionally stay the same over time, the concept that each traveler is different is paramount and it follows that a successful vacation for a traveler with pain needs to be very personalized from the conception through the implementation.
My job is making the world more accessible and if my client’s vacation dreams are like castles in the sky, then my job is putting the foundations under them; and that makes just about any vacation possible. Great site and wonderful topic.